Friday, April 27, 2012

The Language Enigma

Sometimes in writing we have to deal with foreign languages--either existing or
created by us. When we do, we need to make SURE we are doing our research. I
can't stress it enough, so let me say it again: WE MUST RESEARCH. One more time,
say it with me: I MUST RESEARCH.

Even when creating your
own language, you can't just spew letters out and go, "Look, Ma, look what I
made!" Well, you can, but let me tell you right now people will catch you, and
they will be displeased. Every language has rules and cadences and a specific
ring that lets you know it is a language. Think about it, if someone walks by
you speaking another language, even if you don't know it, you recognize it,
right? I hear people speak Spanish all the time. No idea what they're saying,
but I know it's Spanish, or Italian, or Korean, or whatever because it has a
certain sound.

I made this mistake in the first fantasy manuscript I
wrote with my own language. I thought I could just throw out whatever and it
would work because it was a made up language. Guess what? The feedback I got was
something like this:

"These words look NOTHING alike. None of
them."

"I like the story, but their language is really
unbelievable."

"You've never studied languages, have you?"

And
they were completely spot on. When your language looks like: "Xuop uenns to nkto
yu kam lau'la eknataliantbrlmdpkndiflasa?" there is something wrong. (Don't
worry, my language didn't look THAT bad, haha, this is just an exaggerated
example.)

My favorite example of an author who
has this nailed is Richard Adams--the genius behind Watership Down. The book is
about a group of rabbits who must find a new home when they realize their
current one is about to be destroyed by humans. Richard Adams created a
vocabulary for the rabbits based on how he thought they would genuinely speak if
they could.

Oh my goodness I could keep going! (You know by now
I'm long-winded, yes? Good! Continue to forgive me.) Back to Richard Adams. His
language LOOKS like a language. More than that, it FITS the characters who are
speaking it--if you can't picture a rabbit with its little wiggling nose saying,
"Hrududu, hrududu," then you've never stared at a rabbit long
enough.

Now, I'm not saying you need to be J.R.R.Tolkien or James Cameron
or whoever created Klingon. If you want to make a complete working language,
FANTASTIC, if not (like lazy old me), you still need to put in the time and
imagination to make the words you do use believable. It makes a tremendous
difference, believe me.

(This is self-explanatory for real languages,
right? I hope we all understand we must spare ourselves from the embarassment of
putting Arabic in our books when we know nothing about it and having someone who
does know the language corner us and demand to know why this character called
his girlfriend a lovely cow.)

3 comments:

Unfortunately, I fail at life and have not done this. Which is why I shall remove all mention of foreign language words from WDC and pretend they don't exist. While the English language is my thing, languages in general are not.

I love Watership Down.And I did a post about the origination of Klingon during A to Z last year. It was actually "Scotty" that came up with it. At first.Language is tough. It can't just be a bunch of made up words.